Cocaine Raid Nets Suspected Dealers

Six Arrested In Willimantic

11 Pounds Of Cocaine Seized

WINDHAM — For the past six months, police and town officials have focused on the town's longstanding heroin problem, setting up a task force and conducting raids on dealers and users.

Now a weekend drug raid has presented local officials with a new worry: a well-organized cocaine trade.

Forty FBI agents and state and local police kicked down the doors of six apartments across town and in the town's Willimantic section and seized 11 pounds of cocaine with a street value estimated at more than $400,000.

Police also seized four handguns, $93,781 in cash and eight vehicles, four of them with specially designed hidden compartments in which police found much of the contraband.

``It is a lot for this town,'' Willimantic Police Chief Lisa Maruzo-Bolduc said Monday. ``We're banging them as soon as we possibly could, so they won't get a strong foothold.''

The arrests of six people, including two on federal warrants, was the result of a nine-month investigation by the FBI, whose agents were led to Willimantic by investigations of its Northern Connecticut Violent Crime Gang Task Force in the Hartford-New Britain area. Police said the trail led to a ring of suspected dealers, most of whom are believed to be from the Dominican Republic.

``Historically, the Dominicans are the retail outlets for the Colombian cartels. They use them to get the cocaine on the streets,'' said William Reiner, a supervisory special agent for the FBI in New Haven.

Cocaine found in Connecticut has been traced to Washington Heights in New York City, and is often cooked into crack, a more potent form, Reiner said. Dominican dealers have been associated with violent turf wars in other locales, authorities said.

In one car seized this weekend, police found a hidden compartment with an electronic control inside a 1991 Honda Accord wagon. Inside the compartment were three semiautomatic handguns, two of them stolen, police said. They also seized $58,000 in cash and several counterfeit identification documents. Its owner, Ramon A. Paniagua, was arrested last month as a fugitive from justice from Louisiana, where he was wanted for possession of 13 kilograms of cocaine, police said. He is awaiting extradition.

Charged with possession of cocaine with intent to sell were Freddy De Los Santos, 29, 877 Main St.; Jose Negron, 28, 126 Union St.; Luis Martinez, also known as Alfi Jiminian, 30, 369 Valley St.; and Rosa Lia Doninguez-Cruz, 36, and Arterio Benavidez, 42, both of 318B Jeffrey Road. All were living in Willimantic or Windham, police said.

As officers were arresting one of the suspects his cellphone began ringing, said Lt. Mary Beth Curtis, supervisor of Willimantic's detective division. Officers arranged to meet two Chaplin residents who were arrested, she said.

``It's becoming a serious problem. Obviously, there is a market for it,'' Curtis said.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is also investigating suspects arrested this weekend to see if they are in the country legally, police said. The suspects were held on bail ranging from $750,000 to $1.5 million, police said.

Packages of cocaine ready for sale were seized from several apartments, including some at the Windham Heights Housing Complex, where a state police task force has been trying to crack down on drug trafficking.

Among the contraband seized was 2.5 kilograms of cocaine and $7,833 in cash from an apartment above a Main Street restaurant frequented by businessmen and town officials, police said. Rodriguez, who lives in the apartment, had parked his black 2000 Mercedes E320 sedan outside. In Doninguez-Cruz's subsidized apartment in Windham Heights, police found $22,511 in cash, a half kilogram of cocaine, crack and marijuana, police said.

Sgt. Stephen Ostroski, who supervises the state police Windham Heights Task Force, said he believes the cocaine was being kept there rather than sold. He said he was surprised the arrests concerned cocaine.

``We've also been seeing marijuana and Ecstasy, when it has almost been exclusively heroin,'' Ostroski said. ``That's unusual. I can't explain why the sudden switch to cocaine.''

Windham's First Selectman Michael Paulhus said it doesn't make a difference what the drug is.

``To me, it's narcotics. We're putting a serious dent in it. On the state police side, it was heroin. On the federal side, it was cocaine,'' Paulhus said. ``We're doing our best to rid the town of both.''